I'm not really taking the pi** out of safe working procedures Dougie but I do reckon that anyone that cannot recognise the screwdriver (or most other hand-tools) he needs by about the age of 12 or so needs to spend his working life in the pen-pushing environment! I blame the education system over the past 30 years or so. By the age of about 13 at my school, which was just a secondary modern school we spent quite a lot of time in woodwork and metalwork classes, making all sorts of stuff, using drilling machines, lathes, metal shaping machines, pedestal mounted grinders/buffers etc and I can't remember anyone doing himself more of an injury than perhaps hitting his thumb with a hammer or similar! I went to a bit of a re-union there a few years ago and having a look around for old times sake i saw that our beautifuly equipped woodwork and metalwork shops had been turned into ordinary classrooms,

That's something else that was drummed into us at about the age of 13 Martyn, I can still hear our woodwork teacher now saying "that could put a man out of work for 6 months" if he ever saw a piece of wood lying around on the floor with a nail sticking up, I think of those words to this day when I take floorboards up, even when i'm the only one around,

The problem is if one of your electricians was using a 4mm screwdriver to remove large galv trunking lid for example and screwdriver either slipped or broke and injured his other hand then how can you prove that they employee is trained and has suitable instruction in how to do the task. This is where method statements come into play.

Its a blame industry now and tool box talks is covering our ***** cheeks.

For example: A employee of a contractor we work with did a tool box on manual handelling of moving of a AC motor in and out of vans Safely, 2 weeks later a employee attempted to to lift the motor out of back of van as his co worker was using a mobile telephone. The motor slipped and he broke his foot. He tried to sue the company for lack of training and not suitable instruction on manual lifting of this type of equipment. His employer simple showed the employee a record of all his signed attendance of the tool box talks and his signature next to the register for the power point presentation he had sat through on tool box talk for how to lift this exact motor and training on correct company procedure in how to manual handle it correctly.

The power point was no longer than 5 slide and took 5 min. These situations are becoming more and more common.